- Clinics and hospitals have a strict, colour-coded system to organise different types of waste before a company comes to collect it.
- When vaccines expire, they’re put in green bins and quarantined away from other waste such as blood or tissue.
- It doesn’t cost much to destroy vaccines. The bigger issue is the money wasted on purchasing the jabs and the high price tag that comes with falling very ill with Covid when it could have been prevented.
By the end of October we could have to deal with millions of expired Pfizer vaccines if they’re not used by then.
Like most consumable products that reach their use-by date, they have to be disposed of. Vaccines, in particular, need to be incinerated at a very high temperature so that everything is destroyed.
Their destruction falls into 6 different steps. Watch this video and find out more.
*This story was produced by the Bhekisisa Centre for Health Journalism. Sign up for the newsletter.